


What You Decide To Be Is What You Are

by wesleyfanfiction_archivist



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-20
Updated: 2005-08-07
Packaged: 2018-05-31 10:18:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6466477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesleyfanfiction_archivist/pseuds/wesleyfanfiction_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wes and Faith have more to talk about than a simple job proposition. NYC, post-<i>Chosen</i>, pre-Wolfram & Hart involvement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1/3

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [WesleyFanfiction.net](http://fanlore.org/wiki/WesleyFanFiction.Net). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in February 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [WesleyFanfiction.net collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wesleyfanfiction/profile).

She’s never been in love. Not really. She thinks she doesn’t care. At least, not when she’s sitting on the stoop on an August night, chain-smoking. She’s practically melting in the heat, gulping down great draughts of Budweiser in an attempt to keep cool. She loves the sensory overload of a hot summer night in the city—the cross-pollination of hip-hop and talk radio, sanitized MTV punk and Hispanic gospel, all fading into one great, heady mélange, the panhandlers gesticulating wildly, drug dealers and hookers on the make— all local color, and she takes it in along with the cigarette smoke. It soothes her. At long last, she’s come home.

Even so, she feels like the only girl in the world. The city of a million stories, and she’s all alone. Here she’s not The Slayer, or even _A_ Slayer —she’s just a girl. And for once in her life that’s OK. She takes another drag, then stubs out the cigarette on the filthy sidewalk. 

She’s about to go back inside when she sees him. He’s standing in the doorway opposite, watching. He’s not moving a muscle, not even when she makes eye contact with him. No acknowledgement there at all. She’s a little startled, because last she heard he was still in Hell-A. She wonders what the hell he’s doing in New York City.

She knows. 

Five seconds later she’s standing across from him, staring him down. She’s trying her level best to be intimidating, but frankly she’s out of practice and she’s a bit shaken to see him again.

“What the fuck are you doing here, Wes?”

“I might ask the same of you, Faith.”

“Don’t fuck with me. I asked you a simple question.”

“You’re too young to retire, Faith. We need you.” 

“‘We’? You’re back in the fold again? Bull- _shit_ , Wes. Did _he_ send you?”

“No.”

“Then who?”

“Giles. With all the new Slayers in the world, he and Buffy need someone to help them with training and technique—”

“Yeah, I’ve got some _fabulous_ technique. What do you want me to say? There’s a reason I’m in New York and it’s not to babysit a bunch of baby Slayers in training.”

“So, yes, why _are_ you here, Faith?”

“I’m tired. Just fucking tired of all of it. I’m here to get away from _you,_ and after all I’ve done for you I think I deserve it. Jesus, the Council’s worse than the fucking Sopranos.” 

Wes touches her arm. The touch is gentle but resolute. “Let me buy you dinner, Faith. Let’s talk about this.”

Faith visualizes her empty fridge (mayo, a mummified apple or two, and some milk) and says yes.

***

He takes her to this impossibly expensive Asian fusion place on Spring —the kind of place where they bring you a smooth, perfectly imperfect pebble to rest your lacquer chopsticks on. 

Wes is being weirdly formal, holding the door open for her as they walk into the restaurant, pulling the chair out for her —so fucking _chivalric_. As he’s pushing her chair up to the table, she says, curtly, “You don’t have to do that.” 

He looks a bit startled when he sits down. “Of course not, I just thought—”

“Let’s cut the bullshit, Wes. You want to talk? Fine. Let’s talk. You don’t need to wine and dine me. Miss Manners isn’t going to be grading you later.”

He can barely contain the throb of anger that flashes across his sharp features. “Let me tell you something, Faith. I don’t have to do a thing for you. In fact, I’d rather be just about anywhere else than in this unpleasant city. But Giles asked me to talk to you and I owe him that.” Wes squares his jaw and leans toward Faith. “But I don’t owe _you_ a fucking thing. If you don’t want me to do this the nice way, I’m under no obligation to do so.” 

There’s a dead silence as the wine is poured. Faith knows nothing about wine, but she’s got an inkling that Wes has ordered very well —maybe it’s the way the waiter snaps to attention at his every gesture. She’s staring intently at the menu just so she doesn’t have to meet Wes’ gaze. Jesus, he can be one intense bastard when he wants to be, and it seems like a hundred years have passed since he was the inexperienced, supercilious prig known as her Watcher.

A few more moments of fraught silence pass between them before Wes speaks.

“That was uncalled for. I’m sorry.” His voice is softer now. “I was hoping we could maintain a veneer of civility. Shall we start over?” He raises his glass. She joins him, and smiles weakly. 

She takes a small sip of wine, then another. Its rich, honeyed tanginess starts to unravel the knot of tension in her stomach. 

Before she can stop herself, she’s talking. Mile-a-minute, bullshit stuff. She feels as though he’s judging her in every spare second. 

“—used to be the vamps pretty much stuck to Alphabet City and the warehouse district by the river, but now they’re moving on to Brooklyn just like everyone else. I hate schlepping over there, but I can’t afford a goddamn car and the vamps sure as hell aren’t gonna come to me. The hipster vamps in Williamsburg are the worst —so much fucking attitude— but at least they’re shitty fighters and I get to keep their records afterwards. Christ, the eighties were crap —but at least the trade is keeping me in groceries. I’m living pretty lean these days, even with the illegal sublet. The building super keeps giving me the evil eye …wonder if he’s a demon. Nah, probably just your typical New Yorker.”

“This city has certainly perfected a kind of collective hostility. Los Angelenos may be self-absorbed, but at least they’re relatively genial about it.”

They both laugh —more than a little uneasily— but it feels good, momentarily breaking the wave of tension that’s been threatening to crest. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you laugh, Wesley. I mean, beyond your stuck-up little Watcher chuckle back in the day.” She leans back in her chair, swirling her wine in her glass. “It’s good to hear it, y’know. I was beginning to think you didn’t know how or something.”

He gives her a rueful smile. “You’ve always thought of me as a humorless prick, haven’t you Faith?” he says, barely looking up from his sushi-grade tuna. There’s not even a hint of hostility in his voice — it’s just a question, like any other.

She doesn’t want to answer him. She doesn’t trust the “yeah” that’s already fully-formed in the back of her throat. 

She hesitates for a moment before figuring “What the fuck?” and giving him a patented self-satisfied Faith smirk: “Really, Wes, one out of two ain’t half-bad.” 

Now it’s Wes’ turn to lean back, swirl his wine slowly and give her an unblinking stare that seems to bore right through her. “Touché, Faith. You’ve pinned my wings back and you’re just about to go for the thorax. Very good.” Glint of pure pleasure in his eye.

“You’re a condescending bastard, Wes.”

“Ah, I’m two for two there.”

Silence from Faith before she slams her wine down and leans across her overpriced entrée, invading Wes’ airspace: “Fuck, Wes. This isn’t working. Too much fucked-up bullshit has gone down between us for us to sit and have a nice little dinner and chat about the Slayerettes. I thought we could, but obviously—”

“Faith.” 

Back when he was her Watcher, Wes’ voice was the epitome of ineffectual —all crisp enunciation and slightly nasal upper-crust smugness. He’d talk incessantly at her and all the while she’d be visualizing empty word balloons falling at his feet, just like in that Gary Larson cartoon her mom used to have on a cheap mug. Wesley might as well have been speaking in tongues for all she actually _heard_ him. 

Now her entire body snaps to attention when he says her name —his voice is low, as caramel smooth as cask-aged bourbon and just as insinuating. When the fuck did that happen? 

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

She’s listening. 

“I failed you, Faith. I failed you a long time ago.” 

Faith doesn’t say anything. 

“You always compared yourself to Buffy and found yourself lacking. The truth is, you could have surpassed her. You certainly had the natural ability. But you let that nagging voice of defeat win out every time. And I was too smug, too inexperienced, too convinced I was _doing the right thing_ —to address that properly. You were isolated and scared, and I —I was in way over my head.” 

She wonders why he’s telling her this. She doesn’t want to be his fucking confessor. Surely he knows that he doesn’t owe her anything, least of all something as banal as an apology. Her brutality trumped his inexperience, end of fucking story.

“Don’t make excuses for me, Wes. I was a fucking nightmare. And you’re the one who bore the brunt of that.”

When she looks at his face she always sees every scar, every blow she dealt, every bruise. No matter that they’re long healed —to her, they’re indelible. The long, jagged scar across his neck —mostly faded, but still there— isn’t hers, but everything _else_ — 

It occurs to her that she helped build this new Wes, blow by forceful blow. 

She hates herself for it. And hates him even more for seeking her out and reminding her, _yet again_. The two of them revel in reopening old wounds. It’s their calling, and they do it exceptionally well. Apologies and rationalizations aren’t going to cut it, not with them. They were made for something else entirely. She knows it, Wes knows it. Why are they always dancing around it?

“Fuck this shit. I need a real fucking drink.” Faith pushes her chair out, throws her napkin down, gets up. Stalks off towards the dark stairwell that leads to the upstairs lounge. Wes pushes his chair back with such sudden force that it almost topples. He pauses to steady it before rushing after Faith. He grabs her arm as she’s about to disappear up the stairs. 

“You going to cut out on me, Faith? Running away from your problems, per usual? And here I’d hoped for your sake that you’d found a new M.O.” 

“You’re so fucking obvious, Wes. You’ve got your little blinders on —you think it’s all about the mission. You don’t want to admit that it’s all about poor fucked-up little you.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that, Faith. Come on.”

She shrugs off his grip, squares her body between him and the wall. 

“You’ve always been hot for me, haven’t you, Wes? I’m sure you wanted to tell me before, but I can only imagine how hard it is to talk with a gag in your mouth.”

She’s standing too close to him, defying him to say no to her. 

“Faith—” His tone is even, unreadable. She doesn’t have a fucking clue as to what he might do, he’s so motionless. It’s the same coiled stillness that she saw right before he pinned that startled girl to the grimy wall of the drug den; the knife tore right through her shoulder and lodged in the wall, with enough force to suspend her above the floor. The look that Faith saw in his eyes then— flinty, dead, utterly cold— sent a shudder through her like nothing else before it, not even the full force of Angelus’ wrath. Wes’ behavior was more chilling, because it was so tamped down and unpredictable. 

Angelus may be one bad-ass motherfucker, but there’s always been a touch of the showy and obvious about him. 

Not so Wes. 

She shakes the memory away.

She’s not even sure anymore if that really happened. It has the soft-focus haziness of a dream. 

Nothing soft-focused about the coldness she saw when she looked in his eyes. 

She sees a pale echo of it now in the intensity and opaqueness of his stare. She wonders for one brief moment if she’s in over her head, but then, she was never one to back away from a challenge. And Wes 2.0 _clearly_ presents a challenge.

“A Watcher doing a Slayer. How very …naughty. I’m willing to bet that’s frowned upon by the Council. That’s not in your precious handbook, is it, Wes? Unless it’s the special one you keep in the bottom drawer.”

She can’t tell if he wants to hit her, or kiss her, or both. She imagines they’re pretty close on the spectrum for Wes anyway. In that respect the two of them are peas in a fucking pod. 

She leans in even closer, whispers in his ear: “And I bet it gets you hotter than anything.”

She’s all up in his all too well-defined personal space, and part of her expects him to put her down with a quip, push her away, and return to his Glenfiddich, neat —just like the Wes of old.

When he doesn’t say anything, still doesn’t even move, she keeps goading him: “You’re all talk and no action tonight, Wes. It’s getting kind-of tiresome.”

Then he grabs her by her hair and pulls her even closer to him with a suddenness and force that leaves her momentarily breathless. Now it’s his turn to whisper in her ear, his voice rough but controlled: “I’m going to give you the fuck of your life, Faith. How’s that for all talk and no action?”

Still gripping her hair tightly in one fist, compromising her range of motion, he undoes the button on her jeans and unzips them in one deft motion of his free hand. He slides one finger, then two, between her legs. “No underwear. Huh. Can’t say that I’m surprised.” Before she can stop herself she jerks her hips towards him, ever so slightly. 

He notices.

“Uh uh _uh,_ Faith.” Shades of prissy Wes, admonishing her. He pulls his fingers out of her immediately. They’re slick. “Seems I’m not the only one who’s been all talk and no action.”

“Fuck, Wes—” Her breathing is shallow.

“You’re not going to beg, are you? That’s so unbecoming.” 

He pulls up the stairs, his grip uncomfortably tight on her arm. It’s early yet, so the lounge is deserted. There’s no sign of the bartender, and the lights are dim. Wes deftly maneuvers her around the low boxy tables and drags her toward the bathroom in the back. She knows full well she could easily break away but she lets herself be led by the arm like an errant four-year old who’s been caught.

He practically throws her into the bathroom, closing the door behind them and locking it. 

Once she regains her balance, she sees that it’s a typical chichi yupscale restaurant bathroom, bigger than most New York apartments and far more sumptuously furnished. The mirror’s got trompe l’oeil bamboo around it; there’s a squat red paper lantern by the sink, aromatic candle burning away inside of it —your run-of-the-mill faux-Asian kitsch. Faith’s just thankful it’s not the worst bathroom in Scotland, ‘cause she knows it wouldn’t matter to Wes either way. 

It’s murderously stifling and they’re both throwing off heat. 

“Take your clothes off.” 

She barely has time to step out of her Levi’s, pull her tank top over her head and let them both fall in an unceremonious heap on the floor before he pushes her roughly up against the wall. He’s got both her wrists pinned at her sides, and she can feel the insistence of his erection against her cleft of her ass. The proximity is making her so very wet. 

He lets go of one wrist and cups her breast in his hand. His thumb grazes gently over the hard kernel of her nipple —back and forth, back and forth, mantra-like. Then he pinches it, hard, and she lets out a little groan and arches against him.

“You’re an insolent girl, Faith.” His whisper is hot in her ear. “This is what you deserve.”

His hand glides down the length of her torso and comes to rest between her legs. His index finger thrums teasingly against her clit, tracing steady concentric circles around its periphery with agonizing, deliberate slowness. He gradually speeds up, faster and faster, and just when her clit is about to go into sensory overload, he plunges three fingers into her. She’s rocking in time to the thrusts of his fingers, and he’s keeping her unbearably close to coming by varying the depth and speed of his strokes. She wants him inside of her right fucking _now_ but he’s playing by his rules, and somewhere in her delirious brain she’s forced to admit that he’s earned that right. But she doesn’t care.

“Fuck me, Wes, _please._ ” There’s a hitch in her voice.

“I thought you’d agreed not to _beg._ ” His fingers slip out of her.

She angrily half-turns, fully intending to get this started, for _real_ — when he grabs her by the shoulders and turns her around to face him. His erection still pressing against her, he pulls her toward him and when they finally kiss it’s a wonder a shower of sparks doesn’t erupt. 

For once, it’s not all aggression and mindfuckery between them. That’s seemingly melting away as they lean into one another. It’s a slow, exploratory kiss —a stolen, anomalous moment, slightly unexpected and almost feverish. 

It doesn’t last. It’s Faith who breaks it off. “This is romantic and all, Wes, but I still want you to fuck me. Like, _now_.”

“Oh, I’m getting to that, Faith.” 

The two of them start peeling his clothes off hurriedly. His shirt and T-shirt go on the floor with Faith’s clothes. There’s a strangely satisfying pop, pop, pop as she undoes the buttons of his jeans. It’s his turn to groan as she takes hold of his cock and guides him into her. She wraps one leg around his back and angles herself for his thrusts. Her muscles clamp down around the base of his cock —she feels it twitch in response as he slams into her. 

Their fucking is raw and rushed and there’s so much heat building up between them that Faith almost can’t stand it. They’re expectant together, so taut with want and need. 

"Don’t stop —” 

He half-expects a hail of glorious invectives from her when she comes, but she’s wordless. Her head is thrown back, her body racked by shudders, her nails dig painfully into his back as she arches against him— but she’s surprisingly quiet. Only when the tremors are dying out does she whisper an exhausted “ _Fuck._ ” 

He kisses the hollow of her throat, the slope of her neck, taking in the mingled scent of clean sweat and faded cheap perfume. She traces his fading scars absently with her fingers. 

“You always find a way to unravel me, always.” His voice is almost a whisper, and when he looks at her the hard-edged anger, the coldness, is gone. 

It’s too much. She lets out a strangled sob; she turns her face away from him so he can’t see her fighting back hurt. “— I don’t know how you can say— How can you—” _How can you absolve me, ever?_ He reaches up to stroke her hair, to smooth it out of her eyes, and she flinches. “Shh, Faith. I know. Shh.” He places a quiet, featherlight kiss upon her shoulder. 

She looks up only to realize that they’ve utterly destroyed the carefully arranged faux-feng shui of the bathroom. 

“Oh, _crap._ ” She can’t help but laugh. It’s so fucking ridiculous —this room, the two of them, _forgiveness._ Christ, there must be another apocalypse looming.

“Well, since we didn’t break one another for once, it’s only fitting that we ruined _something._ ”

“Is it even possible to sneak out discreetly?” She eyes the disheveled carnage around them. 

“There’s always a way.” 

“We never did have that talk, Wes.”

“Oh, I got what I came for. Didn’t you?” 

“Yeah, I think I did.” There’s the tiniest flash of a smile as she starts getting dressed. “So, what are you going to tell Giles? ‘Cause he is gonna be _pissed._ Especially after he sees the charges on the business account.”

“That you deserve a little break. He’ll understand. And then sometime within the next six months he’ll send me back, and we’ll try this again.”

“Let’s trash a hotel room next time, y’know? This was a little beneath us.”

“Agreed.”

“Will you take care of everything with them?”

“Yeah. You go.”

She’s opening the door when Wes says, “Faith?”

She pauses, turns toward him. “Yeah?”

“Be good.”

She winks at him. “I will.”

She closes the door behind her.


	2. The Dark of the Matinée

Faith’s got a little secret. Well, okay, she’s got a lot of them, some more well-known than others. Oh, there are plenty of dark dark things hidden in the back of her mind that will never see the light of day if she has anything to say about it. She’s gotten awfully good at compartmentalizing.

Back in school (the five minutes when she actually attended, anyway), she sure as hell wasn’t popular. But _infamous_? Yeah. She only distinguished herself in two arenas: pissing off the principal, and having a _reputation_ —as a klepto, as a slut, as someone not to be fucked with, _ever_. Didn’t matter if the rumors were true or not (although they mostly were). And that set the rather unfortunate precedent for pattern her life took after that. 

She didn’t want to be the one who got called before the principal time and time again; who had perennially ripped clothes, skinned knees, and who accessorized with a smudge of dirt and a glint of righteous fury in her eyes. Deep down, she really wanted to be the girl with the most cake —the one who got to wear the tiara and cry big, grateful tears as she was showered with dozens of roses. The untouchable princess who got treated with care and respect and kid gloves.

The chosen one.

Yeah, _right_. 

Even if she weren’t the Slayer (or even just _a_ Slayer) she’d still have a hardened carapace an inch thick. She had to, really. Call it self-preservation. She was used to picking herself up and dusting herself off. (Vamp dust, usually, but sometimes, if she was really lucky, it was something altogether ickier and frustratingly Clorox-resistant.)

No, as secrets go this is something altogether more mundane. Strangely normal even.

Rainy days are her movie days. Not pop-some-microwave-popcorn-and-throw-a-tape-in-the-VCR days but honest-to-goodness going to the goddamn _cinema_. 

She stays away from the multiplexes and the places with the awful fluorescent lighting. She feels too out in the open there, too exposed, and they’re fucking eyesores that only play crap anyway. That’s another of her little secrets. She’s no cinephile or anything, but she’s got this appreciation for the classics. 

When she was a kid she and her grandmother had this ritual of going to the pictures every Saturday. Those were the best days of her fucking craptastic childhood. She loved the smell of the fresh popcorn, the feel of it crunching stickily underfoot as she made her way down the dark aisle to where her grandma was sitting. They’d split a carton of buttered popcorn and each have a soda. Faith would slurp hers down loudly during the previews and her Nana would shush her as the lights went down.

And that was the moment, the magical moment when the room was dark except for the soft glow of the opening credits and steady, comforting hum of the projector. That’s when she could forget about her life —her mom who couldn’t hold down a job, the tiny apartment with the perennially leaking roof and the dangerously sloping porch, the endless taunting at school, the dad who barely acknowledged her existence— and lose herself completely. 

That’s when she allowed herself to be happy, if only for a few hours at a time.

***

These days happiness is a momentary thing. If she’s not patrolling, stalking, or killing, then she’s on autopilot, just waiting impatiently for the next opportunity for slayage. She doesn’t have the money for other distractions. The only culture she’s been soaking up lately is the one marked Lifestyles of the Urban Undead. You won’t find that one in _Time Out._

Which is OK. Sometimes. She knows she’s not one for speed dating and small talk over super-sized martinis or whatever the hell passes for courtship these days. 

She likes to think of herself as alone but not lonely. But that’s being optimistic.

And it doesn’t change the fact that she hasn’t heard from Wes since… Yeah. _Since_. 

She doesn’t want to think about it. 

She sighs and lights her umpteenth cigarette of the day, knowing full well once she’s out that’s _it_ for the week. She’s got five bucks to last her until Friday. Giles’ tidy stipend doesn’t stretch all that far in New York City.

She peers out the tiny window and watches the rain sluice down in great torrents. She can hear it drumming rhythmically against the roof. It’s kinda comforting. 

The phone starts to ring and it’s been so fucking long since that’s happened that she practically jumps. She catches it on the third ring.

There’s a faint click, and then one word: “Faith.” It’s a statement, not a question, and her stomach involuntarily twists up in a little knot upon hearing that voice, honey-smooth and crisp, _finally_. Jesus, three months later and it still has the same effect on her. She practically goes from zero to wet in two seconds. Christ.

“Wes.” She keeps her tone neutral, matching him shot for shot. 

“I’ve found myself in your …lovely… town for a few days and was wondering if you’d like to join me for—”

“’Join’ you? Is this a cult or a date, Wes? I seem to recall the last time you were here our casual little wine n’ dine didn’t go so well.”

“Oh?” She can practically hear his arched eyebrow through the phone, “I seem to recall a satisfactory ending.” 

She doesn’t answer him, just takes another drag off of her cigarette and stubs it out in the overflowing ashtray. This is definitely not how she’d envisioned this conversation going. But then, he’s feeling his way and she’s feeling hers. 

Hence the strained, awkward silence. 

She sighs heavily. “Do I want to go on a fucking date and like, hold hands and shit? Not my style. Maybe we’d be better off leaving this behind us, y’know? Because I’m wondering what else we have to give one another.” Her voice quavers a little bit, self-preservation kicking in again. She knows she doesn’t really believe it and doesn’t imagine he does either. 

“I think we should talk. In person.”

“Talk? Or something else?”

Now he sounds thoroughly annoyed. “Faith.” 

“Talk. Yeah. Not my strong suit, you may have noticed.”

He laughs softly. “I didn’t notice a thing.”

“Fucking liar.” She’s not usually one to change strategy mid-stream, but she decides upon a new tack. Tries to salvage what’s already gotten off to a tentative, slightly tense start. “Hey Wes? Do you wanna go to the movies?”

“The movies? Does that also entail small talk and holding hands? Because I seem to recall…”

“I know, I know. It’s not a date. I just need to get out of here. And…”

“Yes?”

She’s quiet for a second. “It’d be good to see you.” 

***

He tells her he’s going to surprise her. Two hours later she finds herself in the lobby of this tiny box of a theatre on the outskirts of Chinatown, a dusty one-room rep that’s seen better days. For a rainy day, the place is strangely deserted. There’s no one in the lobby save for the bored ticket seller, and the movie posters hanging on the walls —lots of Orson Welles and Billy Wilder one sheets— are faded and worn.

She had to take the subway and a bus to get there and she knows she looks like something the proverbial cat dragged in. She’s wet and rumpled and there he is, standing in the corner and looking as impeccable as ever. 

Bastard. 

He doesn’t say a word, just hands her the ticket. 

“Good to see you too.” She gives him her best smirk.

He just smiles and wraps his arm around her waist. 

***

The lights are already down by the time they enter the theatre and find seats. The place seems just as thoroughly deserted as the lobby, but in the inky darkness it’s kind of hard to tell.

She knows the second the movie starts what it is. She’s got this little knack for retaining sense-memories of old films. The music swells and there’s this ridiculous cartoon snake crawling across the credits, clutching an apple— that’s when it all comes back to her. Long before she dreamed of being a princess she wanted to be a fast-talking, resourceful dame like Barbara Stanwyck. 

Maybe that’s one dream of hers that came true. Sort-of. She still covets the wardrobe though. 

She looks at Wes. “I think I’ve seen this. I must have been, like eight or nine. My grandma loved old comedies, we went every Saturday—”

“It’s one of my favorites. When I saw that it was playing, I knew that it would be perfect.” Then he goes all quiet and serious, because the movie is starting and Wes believes wholeheartedly in giving one’s full attention.

She decides to do the same. And it’s easy because the movie is really funny —all snark and innuendo, most of which probably sailed right over her head when she saw it the first time. 

And she recognizes more than a bit of the old Wes in hapless Charles, especially when anti-heroine Jane starts in on her meta-commentary: “’Every Jane in the room is giving him the thermometer and he feels they’re just a waste of time. He’s returning to his book. Won’t do you any good, dear, he’s a bookworm. Watch him swing anyway. How’d you like _that_ hanging on your Christmas tree? Oh, you wouldn’t? What _is_ your weakness, brother?”

For a brief moment she’s sad just how thoroughly she knows the answer to that question.

But she doesn’t dwell, because the movie settles back into the sparkling repartée. And she’s laughing again, leaning against Wes and feeling strangely at ease—and fuck, suddenly it’s like they’re on a fucking _date_. 

Can’t have _that_.

It’s when Jane commands Charles to go down on his knees in front of her that she decides to go for it.

“Say, Wes?” He turns to her, looking slightly annoyed at being interrupted. Movie going really brings out the uptight in him. “Bet you never lost it at the movies.” Her tone is equal parts come-on and dare, and he answers her self-satisfied smirk with a glare of mild protest. She arches an eyebrow at him: “Oh come on. Wes. Expand your horizons.” 

He starts to speak. “Faith, this is—”

She doesn’t let him continue. “Not the right place? But that’s what makes it so perfect.” She’s already kneeling. 

And he doesn’t say another word, just tangles his fingers in her hair and lets her unzip him. 

It’s funny how the world can become so reduced —how sensation can simply override everything else. How the rasp of the zipper going down practically fills the room. The tiny indrawn breath he takes when she first curls her fingers around his half-hard cock. The utter simplicity of taking him in her mouth and swirling her tongue around the tip until she achieves the desired effect. It’s practically a fucking Zen moment when he throws his head back and grips her shoulders tightly. That’s all the encouragement she needs to speed up. 

His hips jerk forward and his body tightens up under her and she knows he’s ready to come. She’s ready for it too, swallows it all down. Keeps him in her mouth for a moment afterwards, hears him moan and feels him shift away from her slightly. She slides off of him and rocks back on her feet. 

She feels …depleted. Like she’s not sure if she did the right thing. Like she’s fucked up a very delicate balance. For a second there’s just silence between them and the film soundtrack is clattering on in the background and all she wants to know is what the fuck this is between them. But it’s not the time or the place.

Was it ever going to be?

The point is kinda moot because her fucking knees are killing her. She starts to get up, slowly, figuring she can just watch the rest of the movie and then slink away with the last shred of her dignity intact. But Wes grabs her wrist. 

“You seem to be operating under the misapprehension that we’re done.”

And she just stares at him, open-mouthed, like he’s speaking in Esperanto. 

“Lean back in the chair, Faith. And take off your underwear, would you?”

“But …here?” She glances around, feeling slightly queasy at the thought of being seen. She’s not sure where her usual bravado went but she’d like it back, stat.

“Turnabout is fair play, don’t you agree?” 

“Wes, I’m not sure—“

“Oh come on, Faith. Expand your horizons,” he drawls as he opens her thighs with insistent fingers. He hooks one finger into the waistband of her panties. She raises her hips obediently so he can drag them slowly off of her body. 

She knows he’s mocking her but she’s not going to complain when her underwear is gone and her legs are wrapped around his waist and he’s sliding down between her legs. 

And jesus fuck, he’s good at this. He throws his whole body into it, fingers and mouth and chin and tongue. He angles her just right so he can hum along her clit while twisting his fingers up inside of her. He seems to know instinctively when her clit’s about to go into sensory overdrive, and that’s when he slows everything down. Alternates between shallow, delicate drags of teeth and tongue along her skin, and these absolutely lethal deep thrusts of his tongue. 

She’s feverish, thrashing wildly under him but he just holds her steady and just keeps on fucking her. She can’t even moan properly; instead she’s making these little mewling sounds that she’s sure to be mortified by in retrospect. 

Then she’s coming, so suddenly that she’s taken by surprise. She’s totally untethered, lost, hands clutching at him, eyes shut tight. This cry rips from her that sounds like a sob, and she collapses against him, breathing heavily. Wes kisses her belly and smoothes her skirt back down over her hips. 

It takes her awhile to come down, and when she manages to open her eyes she’s almost startled to see the film still unspooling. She’s forgotten all about it. Jane’s face is filling the screen and she’s smiling coyly as she mutters, “I need him like the axe needs the turkey.” 

Wes interrupts the moment when he takes her hand. He pulls her out of the chair and she stands, somewhat unsteadily. He’s as infuriatingly composed as always.

“We should go. You must be hungry.” 

“Yeah, I am, kinda. But don’t you want to see the rest?” She nods in the direction of the screen. 

“Well, they get a happy ending after all.” He slips his arm through hers and leads her down the aisle. As her eyes re-adjust to the dark she finally realizes that they’ve been totally alone in there the whole time.

It’s only when Wes goes over to the ticket booth and starts writing out a check that it dawns on her as to why. 

She gets this hitch in her throat and can’t tell if she wants to laugh or cry. She can’t let him see it so she walks out onto the sidewalk to wait. She doesn’t light up a cigarette because she knows he’d disapprove so she just sits at the little café table and tries to regain her composure. 

When he finally emerges a few minutes later, she can’t help beaming at him. He looks at her with a neutral expression, like he hasn’t the faintest idea what she’s so fucking happy about, but the tiniest smile breaks through. 

“Wes, that’s the strangest, most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me. And that includes the time I got thoroughly well-fucked in this restaurant bathroom…”

“Ah, but don’t forget, you still have a hotel room trashing to look forward to.” 

“Was that a _joke,_ Wes? I can't tell. It’s kinda like spotting an alien or Elvis: unless you get a photo you’re not sure it actually happened…”

So they don’t get a cut-and-fade-to-black movie kiss. That’s okay. They got something better.


	3. Counting Backwards

The city’s a messy place. All that desperation and ugliness crammed into such a small space —if ConEd could just figure out a way to siphon it off they could power up the whole fucking city for all eternity.

But from up here it’s all different. All that chaos and noise has been distilled into something approaching beautiful. Quiet, orderly, unreal.

It’s better from up here. Much better. A spacious, well-appointed penthouse hotel suite in the best city in the whole world —a girl could get used to this sort of thing, right? Right? 

When you get right down to it, though, spending the night in dumpy, neon-lit motels on endless two-lane blacktop in the middle of nowhere, or the cold, damp backseat of a Chevy Impala or Dart Duster is more her style.

Christ, she hopes she never has to sleep in the backseat of a car again.

Doesn’t want to think about all that went before. This is her very expensive, palatial home away from home, and she’s determined to enjoy it —even if she feels as though she doesn’t deserve to. She can’t shake the uneasy feeling that she’s being watched —like someone’s going to go all Truman Show on her ass any second, maybe even find the truly epic stash of Kiehl’s that she swiped off the maid’s cart. Man, she could sure as hell get used to that stuff.

She grabs another tiny Jameson’s from the mini-bar and slugs it back.

A sudden knock at the door makes her jump.

“Yeah? What?”

“Package for you, ma’am.” For one brief second she wishes this little schmuck were a vampire so she could stomp him for the “ma’am” crack. But she lets it slide —he's just lucky that she’s learned some equanimity over the years.

Doesn’t give him a tip though. She grabs the bag from him and slams the door in his face.

She’s used to getting tacky PVC outfits from her admirers, not slightly prim, beribboned packages from Barneys NY. Nestled inside are two boxes: one long and relatively flat, the other for shoes. There's a slightly brusque note attached: “Wear this tonight.” She impulsively crumples up the note, then fishes it out of the trash and smoothes it out with the flat of her palm. He does get extra points for the fancy stationery.

She doesn’t know if she’s touched or unsettled by Wes going all Henry Higgins on her. She knows full well you can dress her up but you can’t take her out. Look what happened last time. Well, OK, that was as much Wes’ fault as hers, but—

She steps gingerly into the dress, zips it up. It’s all froth and layers of chiffon falling delicately to her ankles, with a gathered bodice and shirred little cap sleeves. It’s too good for her, too expensive, too refined —too this, too that, blah blah blah; then again, she fucking deserves it, after all this time. Just once, something beautiful that’s hers. She looks slightly askance at the contents of the other box, its contents now toppled over on the floor.

She knows that he wants someone sweet and pliant, however momentary the illusion might be. Fuck that, she thinks, and smiles in the mirror. That someone ain’t her.

***

Faith’s never adopted the New York summer uniform —tottering around in Seven jeans and sky-high heels and little girly sundresses that cost a year’s salary isn’t for her, even if she had the money (which she doesn’t). She’s nothing if not practical. Her wardrobe runs more to Lip Service than Sex & the City.

So she feels like a bit of a fake as she struts down West Broadway in this ridiculous floral get-up. Amazing how the wrong clothes can take you out of yourself completely —she doesn’t feel armored, but exposed. Even her gait feels completely wrong —she’s more alley cat than catwalk. Can’t everyone see that? Can't _he_ see it?

The things you do for …whatever the hell this qualifies as.

***

She’s meeting him at a divey tapas bar in her hood. She walks past her crappy little apartment building on the way and there’s an illicit thrill in that —it’s as though she’s playing hooky from her own life.

He’s waiting for her in front of the bar. He looks her up and down, assessing. Doesn’t say a word. At least, not until he extends his arm gallantly so she can grab hold like she’s the goddamn little missus or something.

“What’s that?” she snaps, taking his proffered arm with a marked lack of good grace.

“If you’d rather I’d left the last vestiges of chivalry back at the hotel, I might suggest you get the door for me.”

She doesn’t even respond to that, just smirks mightily when he finally opens the door so she can breeze through, hips swaying. She can feel his gaze following her.

“You’ve accessorized quite well.” Tiniest hint of a smirk as his slow-burning look of appraisal reaches her chosen footwear.

She sticks out her hip and does an insouciant little sway for him. “Thought Docs were a little improvement.” 

“Why am I not surprised?” he asks, exasperatedly.

“Can’t walk in those heels, anyway,” she adds, a bit snappishly. He doesn’t say a word, just ushers her inside.

Walking into the place feels different now that she’s got Wes on her arm. He’s a cut above her usual …dinner companion. For one thing, she's reasonably sure he wouldn’t refer to jello shots as “liquid panty remover.” Actually, he probably doesn’t even know what the hell a jello shot is. Hell, maybe she’ll teach him, just for kicks. At any rate, she figures Wes’ll love the place. They have a spectacular collection of single malts and there’s an empty booth in a tantalizingly dark corner that’s got their name on it.

He gallantly offers to get her a drink. There’s a faint echo of his old prissiness as he maneuvers back to the table, trying in vain not to spill them. He eyes her margarita (rocks, salt) with more than a little distaste as he sets it down in front of her. She doesn’t even let him get settled into the booth before she speaks, the words tumbling out before she can stop them.

“Y’know, Wes, this is looking suspiciously like a date.”

“Isn’t it one?” he asks, a bit surprised. He takes a tiny, exploratory sip of his drink.

“You tell me.”

He leans back in the booth. “I suppose it is, yes. You’ll perhaps forgive me if I don’t see what’s wrong—“

 

“You really want to sit around and make small talk? Fine. ‘Beautiful weather we’re having isn’t it?’ ‘Why yes, it’s lovely.’” She snorts derisively. “Or we could just skip the formalities and fuck. You don’t even need to get me drunk first.” She cocks her head at him and grins.

He looks genuinely taken aback but recovers his composure quickly. “Has anyone ever told you that beneath your armored exterior there beats the heart of a true romantic?”

“No.”

“Shocking.”

She takes a big, un-lady-like gulp of her margarita. “Just telling the truth, Wes. Next you’re going to tell me you thought you could dress me up _and_ take me out.”

“No, but clearly I was delusional in thinking we could have a relatively normal evening.”

“I’m sorry, but where does ‘nice’ and ‘normal’ factor in? Last time I checked, a nice, normal evening for me meant staking a whole buttload of vamps and somehow getting to bed before dawn. It’s a whole wacky burden-of-slayerness thing.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way. Seems to me the situation’s not as grave these days. You could take some time off. You could travel. Or you could take up Giles’ invitation to—“

She cuts him off abruptly. “I don’t have anything else, Wes. I don’t even know how to do anything else. Can you picture me kicking back on a beach somewhere, watching the goddamn surf roll in all day? Can you? ‘Cause I can’t. This job is gonna kill me someday and that’s the way it’s going to be.” She rolls her eyes and throws back the rest of the drink, slamming the empty glass back on the table with a sharp thud. “End of story.”

“It’s a pity to see you sell yourself so short, Faith. And the job’s only going to kill you if you let it.” He slumps against the overstuffed leather, looking tired and much older under the harsh, acidic glow of the neon.

“Now you’re sounding like my old Watcher. Good on ya, Wes. Love what the firewater brings out. Keep it up.” The flippancy of her tone drains away when she pauses to look at him. She traces a tentative finger slowly, even tenderly, along his jaw. He flinches at first, and then grudgingly allows it. When she speaks her voice is almost a whisper: “I don’t see this line of work doing you any favors either, you know? Take your own goddamn advice for once.”

He doesn’t reply to that at first, just sips his drink. When he speaks there’s the faintest hint of bemusement in his voice. “And what if I don’t trust my own advice?”

“Then you’re an even sadder motherfucker than I thought.”

He doesn’t even riposte, just takes another sip of his drink, his expression sour.

“Now we’re in the awkward silence portion of the evening. You know, I think I liked you better when you were totally fucking angry at me. ‘Cause, _this_ ” —she gestures towards the table— “I don’t know how to deal with.”

“I can’t say I do either, exactly.” He places his palms flat on the table, but she doesn’t touch him. It doesn’t seem like the time.

“What is this _thing_ we’ve got, anyway? What would you call it? I mean, you think you can just tart me up for a dirty weekend here and there but that’s it? You think you can just buy your way into my life and then leave?” Her voice is rising steadily but she can’t stop the momentum of her words. “You just love slumming, don’t you? Love playing good cop/bad cop down on the wrong side of the tracks and getting back just in time for finger sandwiches and high tea. Deep down, you love the little thrill it gives you.” She leans in close. “Just like the first time I straddled you and held that piece of glass to your throat. Don’t think I didn’t feel how excited that got you. Bet you always wanted to know how good a fuck I was. That my sacred duty too? Huh?”

He turns away from her, gritting out the words tersely even as he’s breezily motioning to the waitress to bring their tab. “You seem determined to wallow in ugliness tonight, Faith. I’m not even going to justify that with a response.”

“Oh no?” She pushes him back up against the banquette and straddles him, grabbing hold of his shirt collar and forcing him to look at her. “Bet I could get a response out of you, Wes. You just sit still and let me do all the work. It’s dark enough over here…”

“I thought we were beyond all this … _bullshit_ … by now.” The profanity sounds wrong coming from him, but she knows he’s mocking her in some way, in the way that he’s mirroring her speech. “But I see how much you like it down in the depths.” 

That hits her like a punch in the gut, but she shrugs it off as best she can. “Pot, kettle, Wes. Right?”

“Because two can play that game. Do you really want to go there? Is that what you want?” A hint of still yet another Wes she’s never seen. She suspects there are a lot of Weses in there, and they’re not all people she’d want to meet, Slayer or no. If she ever paused to regret anything (which she doesn’t) it’d be her part in building this Wes from the ground up. But since she doesn’t _do_ regret, she flushes, a bit hot under the collar at the thought of him really unleashing it. And, _huh_ , he must be clairvoyant, because right then he wraps his arms around her, his voice dropping down low. She’s not sure which is making concentration more difficult —his hard-on pressing against her thigh, or his intense, flinty gaze. Either way, this really is her favorite form of flirtation. “I don’t have to be a gentleman at all, Faith. And certainly not the Watcher you knew, all propriety and doing the right thing. You never wanted him —he was merely beneath you, _convenient_ —someone ineffectual to grind down under your boot-heel.” He sneers. “—your idea of a hobby.”

“Jumping to a lot of conclusions there, Wes.” She looks coy. “Maybe I did want him.”

He looks genuinely taken aback at that. “Really,” he says, flatly, abruptly. 

“Yeah, a little. Why not? Wondered what he’d do if I touched him. Wondered if he’d beg me to fuck him into the floor, or want me to hurt him, just a little, just _enough_ to pop his cork. Wouldn’t have taken much, I bet—“

He tenses up, visibly. “I think we’re going about this the wrong way, Faith.”

“No right or wrong to it. Knew we’d fuck, eventually, if we didn’t kill one another first.”

“That would’ve put a damper on things, certainly,” he mutters, ruefully. “I’m rather relieved that you’re no longer talking about me in the third person.”

“So, what now? We gonna recreate past glories or what?”

He looks intrigued. “’Past glories?’ I don’t see any past glories. Just a few paltry stabs at setting things …to _right._ ”

“You gonna set me to right? Finish the job you started?” She wriggles against him, enjoying the ride.

Thorny bastard doesn’t even bat an eyelash. “That’s not what this is about, Faith.”

“Oh yeah? Then what? Don’t tell me you don’t want to take me in _hand_ …” 

“You haven’t the faintest idea what I want.” Flash of anger there, but his credibility is kinda shot considering that he seems to be getting _exactly_ what he wants.

“That’s right, I don’t. So tell me. Don’t hold back. I know you want to pick me up out of the gutter and dust me off just so you can dirty me up again. Gets you off, doesn’t it?” 

“On the contrary. I think it gets you off.” 

“You don’t fucking know me. You can’t fucking say that—” She disengages from him, pushing herself back against the plush banquette, all defensive posture and raised hackles. 

He’s infuriatingly calm. “I think I do know you, in some small but vital way.” 

“You’re a smug bastard, you know that? You think a lot. Maybe I admire that. But that’s your problem —you live in your head. And I know there’s a hell of a lot of doubt in there.” She smiles. “We’re kinda alike that way, you know?”

“All too well, Faith. I think I even have the scars to prove it.”

She doesn’t need to say anything to that.

“Been a lotta what ifs in your life, haven’t there? I’m not going to be part of that. I’m not good at it. I’m a _now_ sorta girl. You want me now? Great. We can take the rest of this bullshit up with debate class later. Or Giles. I don’t really fucking care.” She’s deeply suspicious of her sudden need for talk. It frustrates and unsettles her. She knows, deep down, that she can’t beat Wes at his own game.

Why does she always feel the need to beat him? Or that this is a game? 

He cuts off her inner monologue.

“You were the one with all the caveats.”

“The whats?”

“The apparent need for qualifications and explanations.”

“Thanks for the fuckin’ SAT tutorial, Wes, but I think that was the booze talking.”

“’In vino veritas.’”

“Last time I checked you didn’t come with sub-titles, Wes.”

“’In wine, truth.’”

“Got that right.” She slumps back into booth, sighing heavily. “We’re going in circles again, aren’t we?” 

“Possibly.”

“Fuck that. Just fuck it.”

“ _Language._ ” His voice is quiet, gently chiding, but the slight mocking tone gets to her. He reaches out to her, his hand brushing her arm. 

It’s just a light, seemingly inconsequential touch, but she flinches away from it. “Oh, _now_ you’re coming over all Watcher-y on me. Fuck that too.”

“I’m not here as your Watcher, Faith. You’re free to do what you like.” 

She dismisses his concern with a wave of her hand. “What _ever_ , Wes. I’ve heard it, okay? Whatever you have to say to say to me, some other asshole’s gotten there before you. Christ, you’re exactly the same, underneath the upper crusty exterior. Which, granted, is looking a little bad boy these days, but that’s not counting for much right now.”

“Oh no?”

She laughs. “Well, maybe just a little.” 

“Thank god. If I had to rely solely on my charm I might be in trouble.”

“Oh, you’re in trouble anyway.”

“That’s usually true.”

“Yeah.” She clutches her drink like it’s a life-line, gulping down the better part of it because she needs a little dutch courage. “Y’know, we’re not as different as we used to be. I mean, I get what you’ve been through and you—“

He can see her groping towards something and he interrupts: "I don’t think we harbor too many illusions about one another, if that’s what you mean.”

“Yeah, I guess.” More weighty silence as they contemplate their now-empty glasses. Suddenly there’s all this —space between them. A divide. And she’s trying to work her way back to him. Chosen One, right. —what a fucking laugh and a half that was. All the power in the world, and some things were always just out of reach. “You know, people think I’m, like, this total slut or something. But I’m not, I’m really not. I just—“

“You have nothing to apologize for, Faith, this is all my—“

“I’m not apologizing. I’m trying to tell you something. I’ve had all this chaos in my life for so fucking long. My whole fucking life. I don’t remember anything else. It’s like, I don’t know, I don’t have all this _time_. I just take things when they come, even if they’re just, like, _momentary_ and I know it. I mean, you think B had a tough time with relationships? Holy shit, she’s got nothin’ on me. But you and me, we’ve got all this history, and it’s like…”

“…an inevitability? That’s damning it with faint praise, isn’t it?” Is that a concession of sorts to her? It’s hard for her to tell, since he’s what passes for the Wes version of bemused when he says it.

“Something like, that. Yeah.” 

“So why all the defensiveness about this being a ‘date’ or not?”

“I’m kinda freaking out, Wes.”

“I get that.”

“Good.” She laughs nervously, then goes back to contemplating her now-empty glass. Like, if she stares at it long enough the booze will regenerate. Or not. “Fuck, I could use another margarita.”

“Will you let me get it for you? Or is that overstepping the bounds of allowable date behavior?” He takes the glass from her hand.

She jolts upright, like she’s just thought of something. “Do you know what a jello shot is?”

“A what?”

“Nothing. Forget it. I’m clearly not drunk enough.”

“For what?”

“Complications.”

“There’s no avoiding those, I’m afraid.”

She smiles wanly. “No, I guess not.” She pauses, trying to sort through all her jumbled thoughts. “A penthouse suite and a dress aren’t going to make me happy, Wes.”

“It was a gesture —perhaps more than slightly naïve. A miscalculation. But I wanted to—”

She touches his arm. “I should have thanked you. I mean, I _am_ thanking you.” 

She’s so used to a certain worn-down, grim demeanor from him that his look of genuine surprise throws her. 

“Would you like to get out of here?” he asks, abruptly.

“And go where?”

“Anywhere.”

“What, like a _road trip_?” She laughs sharply. “I don’t have a goddamn cent to my name, Wes, and company plastic would only get us so far.” She giggles. “Although I’d love to see Giles get _that_ bill.”

“We wouldn’t have to worry about that. I’ve done fairly well for myself, all things considered.”

She gives him a sly look. “We gonna let that hotel room go to waste?”

“There are plenty of other hotel rooms. In plenty of other cities.”

“Anywhere?”

“Anywhere.”

“You think we can just —outrun everything? That never works —I should know.”

“Not _outrun_. But this isn’t a place for middle ground. Maybe we need someplace …quiet. Somewhere we’re not always at war.”

“Maybe that’s what we do.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Yeah, well…” She’s trying to shrug it off, but deep down she wants to believe it too. 

“Faith.” The unvarnished sincerity in his tone stops her short. Her name falls off his lips like it’s a promise, like it _means_ something. Not so long ago she would have laughed in his face but not now —she’s _listening_.

“I don’t want this to end before it even begins,” he tells her quietly, cupping her chin, pulling her close enough to finally kiss her. She hadn’t been touched in so long. At least, not like that. Not like it really matters. Because when he kisses her —slowly, tentatively— everything seems possible again, even for the girl who’s never believed much in possibilities.


End file.
